Differences in belt grit progression?

My routine is almost exactly the same as Mr. Jones'. I use the gators and hit them with a wire brush, and they just get right back to cutting. (make sure you have a respirator on when you touch the wire brush to them, because it lets loose a cloud of abrasives)
60 grit blaze, 80 grit blaze, then work through with the gators, then on to hand sanding.
 
Bailey Knives said:
My routine is almost exactly the same as Mr. Jones'. I use the gators and hit them with a wire brush, and they just get right back to cutting. (make sure you have a respirator on when you touch the wire brush to them, because it lets loose a cloud of abrasives)
60 grit blaze, 80 grit blaze, then work through with the gators, then on to hand sanding.
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I've been wanting to try the gators, but the place I usually get belts from doesn't carry them. Any place good to get gators besides Janzt?

Where do you guys grab 'em?
 
alb1k said:
trugrit.com

Jon, They are in Ontario, Ca. You will have them in 1 or 2 days.

Erik
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DOH!:o I don't know why I didn't think of them. I buy from Supergrit and USA Knifemaker most of the time. True grit slips under my radar I guess. Thanks Erik.
 
I have been buying my belts from True grit for ever . Good folks !! Norax and trizact are great belts for grinding blades only. Do not try to shape handles or clean up your profile with them . You will quickly wear a groove in them and they are pretty useless after that .
 
Some of the progressions you guys use:

Tattooedfreak: 36 60 80 220
Silver_pilate: 36 60 180 320 600
Justin King: 36 80 120 or 220
Bladsmth: 36 80 120 220 400 800 1200 2500 6000
Don Hanson: Large blades: 40 120 220 400
Small blades: 60 120 400
JasonSCarter: 80 320 600
Psycho78: 60 120 220 400
Jonnymac44: 60 120 100x (220) 65x (400)
Sunshadow: 60 120 220 400 600 800 1200 2400 15Micron 3Micron
Nathan the Machinist: (mill) 120 220 400 HT 400 scotchbrite

From what I see:
Some like to start with a coarser grit, some with a finer one.
Some like to make small jumps through the grits while other make big ones.
Some leave the grinder fairly rough (220), others mid range (400-600).
Page and Stacy go all the way up to baby seal skin. ;)

So, while we may see some similarities, there is no absolute way to do this it seems.
 
Thanks for the summary. I only have 10 belts right now, bought them to set up my grinder when it is finished. I currently have 60, 120, and 220. Haven't used any of them and know I will need more range and well just more belts period, but this little list gives me a good idea of some of the ranges I should be looking at for my next purchase.
 
Patrice Lemée;9012495 said:
Some of the progressions you guys use:

Tattooedfreak: 36 60 80 220
Silver_pilate: 36 60 180 320 600
Justin King: 36 80 120 or 220
Bladsmth: 36 80 120 220 400 800 1200 2500 6000
Don Hanson: Large blades: 40 120 220 400
Small blades: 60 120 400
JasonSCarter: 80 320 600
Psycho78: 60 120 220 400
Jonnymac44: 60 120 100x (220) 65x (400)
Sunshadow: 60 120 220 400 600 800 1200 2400 15Micron 3Micron
Nathan the Machinist: (mill) 120 220 400 HT 400 scotchbrite

From what I see:
Some like to start with a coarser grit, some with a finer one.
Some like to make small jumps through the grits while other make big ones.
Some leave the grinder fairly rough (220), others mid range (400-600).
Page and Stacy go all the way up to baby seal skin. ;)

So, while we may see some similarities, there is no absolute way to do this it seems.
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Nice summary, thanks for the post, Patrice.
 
Hey Patrice, You didn't ask if there is a difference grinding carbon steel including Damascus and stainless steel alloys. As far as I'm concerned you don't want to miss many belt sizes if you are grinding on a hardened stainlees steel alloy. Just my opinion and how I do it. Frank
 
I haven't tried stainless or Damascus yet Frank so I did not think to ask if it made a difference for folks who do use them.
 
I second Don, I do slightly different grit steps if I have to make large baldes or small for folders.

Btw my common steps are
60 120 220 400 600 trizact or elbow grease :D

And I add another hint. Don't use the same belts for carbon steels and for stainless steels if you can.

Cheers
 
I was reading through this thread and I kept thinking there was something missing here.
Patrice,
The reason some of these guys use finer or coarser grit progressions is the steel they are using. For simple carbon steels 3 grits may do the job, but for some of the more complex alloys you need double that or more. The reason for this is wear resistance, something all of us like to see in finished knives, but requires more steps to finish.
Page and Stacy are anomolies, Page said that was his progression for metallurgical samples, and Stacy, well, I can only guess, but I think his obsession comes from his jewelry background and his facination with mini's. I would imagine a 400grit hand finish looks like crap on a blade thats only a half inch long and 1/8" wide, hence the finer finish :D (you know we love you Stacy)
Thanks,
Del
 
I work mostly with O1 and CPM-154, also a little D2 and 440C, and starting to dabble with CPM-3V. I work them all about the same; O1 just goes much faster.

Pre-HT: 50, 120, 400, 600, up to very close to finished dimensions. As I use up my 120's I may not buy any more. I find that if I'm careful and keep a clean belt on in the 50 stage, there's very little shaping to do further on, mostly just refinig the scratch pattern. Dirty/worn belts cause ugly scratches that are hard to get out! Save those for hogging/profiling/knocking corners off.

Basically I like to do as much as I can on soft steel. Just like hand-sanding, the cleaner and more even you get the early (low grit) stages, the faster the later stages go. I grind my edges pretty thin but my HT guy (Brad from Peter's HT) knows his stuff so I haven't had any warpage problems.

Post-HT: 400, 600, handrub, sharpen. The blades only get a few passes on each belt to clean off the oxides from HT. Since my blades are done in a vacuum there is very little to remove so it only takes a moment. I've read that it's good to take a couple thou off the blades post-HT to "get down to the good steel"; I'm not sure if my current way is accomplishing this. I need to learn more about it.

Skipping grits doesn't save a ton of actual belts, but it does save some, and some time. It also makes inventory control/ordering simpler.
 
I notice that both the guys who baby-step through grits and to very high grits, Page and Stacy, are goldsmiths. I'm a silversmith and sometime goldsmith and I do the same thing for probably the same reason:

If I've made a mistake grinding or finishing at one grit, that mistake may OR MAY NOT show up at the next grit. It WILL show up at the next-after. Going back to fix a missed scratch or a low spot takes a LOT less time if I'm doubling the grit - 60, 120, 220, 400, etc - than if I'm making big jumps.

Somebody on this forum made a statement that radically changed my way of looking at grinding and sanding, and I've been shaping and finishing metals for 40 years. I don't remember the exact wording but the gist of it was:

"You have a blade. There's a scratch in it. You don't have to remove the scratch, you have to remove everything that's NOT the scratch."

Sort of simplifies the question of "Can I afford new belts?", don't it?
 
I'm a amature knife builder, I have built a fight'n'rooster knife out of used parts, and one rough rider custom knife kit, both which included ready made parts, just needing assembly, aside from that, what would a amature like me need, to produce profesional grade quality knives? And how do you acompilsh makeing good blades like Case, Bulldog, Eye Brand stlye grinds in my backyard?> Please Reply.
 
theSS45' said:
I'm a amature knife builder, I have built a fight'n'rooster knife out of used parts, and one rough rider custom knife kit, both which included ready made parts, just needing assembly, aside from that, what would a amature like me need, to produce profesional grade quality knives? And how do you acompilsh makeing good blades like Case, Bulldog, Eye Brand stlye grinds in my backyard?> Please Reply.
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I think that the majority of us here are amateur knife makers, and to make a quality knife takes nothing more than time, patience, and dedication to learning and improving on your last knife. I made my first knife using nothing more then files, sandpaper, a hacksaw, and a drill. I bit off a bit more then I should have for a first knife, but I think I did a decent job on it and it gave me the confidence to keep going.
I did a WIP for my first knife if you want to see what it came out looking like
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=693892
And this is my last knife so you can see a fair amount can be done with hand tools and or minimal power tools
Things like belt grinders and CNC machines do nothing more than speed up the process, but it still takes the dedication to do the best you can each time. I am sure that makers like Bruce Bump, Ed Cafery and most of the others could make just a good and beautiful knife with simple hand tools as they do with their current tools, it would just take a lot longer for them then it does now. I should add, I am not sticking with the hand tools, I have a 2X72 grinder build underway and should be using it for my next batch of knives:D
 
You guys are making this quite interesting. :thumbup:

I hate to ask for more but if you could tell me if your progression is for Carbon, Stainless or Damascus and also where does the HT fits in there, I think we could come up with something quite useful.

I'll see what format would be best to display the results.

PS: (Don mentioned the kind of belts he uses for coarse and fine grits. I know that this info might be found elsewhere but if you guys want to do the same, I'll also compile the results of that. I think it would make a very good all-around resource on belts, something that can be a little though to get as handle on, well for me anyway.)

Updated List

Tattooedfreak: 36 60 80 220
Silver_pilate: 36 60 180 320 600
Justin King: 36 80 120 or 220
Bladsmth: 36 80 120 220 400 800 1200 2500 6000
Don Hanson: Large blades: 40 120 220 400 Small blades: 60 120 400
Mostho: 60 120 220 400 600
James Terrio: 50 120 400 600 HT 400 600
JasonSCarter: 80 320 600
Psycho78: 60 120 220 400
Mostho: 60 120 220 400 600
Jonnymac44: 60 120 100x (220) 65x (400) HT 100x (220) 65x (400)
Sunshadow: 60 120 220 400 600 800 1200 2400 15Micron 3Micron
Nathan the Machinist: (mill) 120 220 400 HT 400 scotchbrite
 
Patrice: While it is interesting to learn what everyone else does, IMO ultimately you will need to figure out what works for you. Not being a smart ass here.

For example, some guys live the Gator Belts. They get a great finish. I can't do anything with them.

The type of steel you are using, how hard you heat treat it, the style of grind and the desired final finish all factor into what grit belts are used. My belt sequence for A2 is TOTALLY different than for CPMS30V.

You also have to accept that SFM and grinding technique (Pressure, speed of traverse across the belt) vary greatly from maker to maker.

But, since you asked, here is what I would recommend for CPM Stainless alloys:

Rough grind on 3M 777F, 60 grit. For me, the 60's cut better than the 50's, with more control and more precise grind lines. Easier to clean up the 60 grit scratcdhes than the 50 grit, too.

Clean up with 3M 707E, 180 grit. This is a thinner belt, closer in thickness to the finishing grit belts to be used later. Change the angle of your scratch pattern about 5 degrees with this belt so you can BE SURE to remove all the 60 grit scratches.

Re-grind with a 707E, 220 grit belt. Heat treat and temper the blade.

Re-grind again with a 707E, 220 grit belt. If this is not sufficient to remove any warpage and re-center the blade tip (if necessary), back up to the 180 grit, then use the 220 grit.

From here, I use 3M Micron belts. 60, 40, 30, 15, 9. Depending on the finish you want, you can stop anywhere you like. I run these belts with WD40, which is essential to keep the swarf from scratching the finish. For a 4" blade, you will need a minimum of one belt per blade on CPMS30V. On ATS34 or 440C, one is plenty. Again, change the orientation of the scratch pattern slightly so you can see that the previous grit scratches are coming out. Once you think they are out, make at least one more "perfect" pass before going to the next belt.

I like to "knock down" the edges of the belts from 180 and finer, using a piece of steel lightly applied to the overhanging portion of the belt. This helps eliminate wild scratches from the edge of the belt.

I use 1" wide belts, because I find they wear more evenly across the belt. It is not uncommon for me to fill an entire (large) garbage can with "dead" belts during a day of blade grinding, where I might grind 12-18 folder blades. Don't even get me atarted on alloys like CPMS110V. That's two garbage cans full!

Generally, the faster you can run these belts, the more work you can get done before they die. This is particularly true for the 707E belts. Until you master getting "on" and "off" the belt, run them only as fast as you are comfortable.

Hope this helps.
 
RJ, are you kidding? This helps a LOT. :thumbup: A glimpse at how you do things is invaluable, especially coming from someone who is widely considered one of the best grinders out there. I appreciate the time you took to write this down for us.

I agree that we have each have to develop our own way of doing this. As you said some things work for some and not others. But we do have to start somewhere. I was hoping by doing this that we could get a general idea/baseline for people to start with. Maybe shorten the amount of time beginners (like me) spend trying to figure out where to start and spend more time actually practicing to get to the point where you are comfortable enough to develop a process that works for them. Does this makes any sense?

Thank again for sharing with us.
 
Patrice, although I understand your intention, I've found that the majority of knifemakers (myself included!) tend to follow the most circuitous path to the final destination in hopes of 'saving' somewhere. It's as if we need to exhaust every other possibility rather than following the obvious progression.
RJ's observations are a perfect counter of this. Had I listened to these instructions in the first three years of doing this, I'd have saved TONS of money and time because I wouldn't be cutting with dull tools and screwing up as much!
If you read between the lines, what he says is "start with coarse, new belts and progress through a succession of finer grit new belts until the desired finish is reached. I count 7 different belts for his progression on CPM steels. Betcha if you asked about tool steel the results might be different belts, but would involve the same or similar number of steps.

Summary:
- use fresh belts, because they work.
-use a succession of grits, because it ends up working faster and therefore more economically.
-use as many belts as it takes.

I can't hope to accomplish what RJ does, but I've seen him take a new 30 micron belt and make 2 light passes per side and be ready for the next finer grit. It works this way because he did all the steps before it the same way! No fooling around, no chasing a 180 grit scratch out, no goofiness. Why? Talent, certainly - but only because he does it the right way, not trying to do it a different way and forcing his skill to overcome the medium.
 
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